memories

adventures / memories / photo / Tuesday — Comments Off on Tuesday throwbacks
4
Jun 13

Tuesday throwbacks

Because it is June and my site and so on I’ve decided that this will be a week of older pictures. Most of these are on my phone. Some of them have been in this space or elsewhere on the site or in some of the regular social media places before. So they might be old to you — and bless you for still visiting — or they might be brand new.

Enjoy.

It is hard being the black cat. This is some time in the early fall of 2011:

Allie

Later that same year we had Thanksgiving on Dauphin Island. We stopped just as we crossed the bridge for sunset pictures:

Ren

Come visit on Twitter and Tumblr.

family / memories / photo / weekend — Comments Off on Happy Mother’s Day
12
May 13

Happy Mother’s Day

My wife, grandmothers and role models. I’m fortunate to have a lot of strong, loving, beautiful women in my life. My mother is, of course, one of them.

MomDay

Those early memories are impossible, and then fuzzy, and then they become more clear.

No matter how the memories look in your mind’s eye you could always count on your mother to be in the background, lifting you up, holding you safely, pushing you onward.

Happy you day!

adventures / Friday / history / I do not know what is happening. / memories / Twitter / video — Comments Off on At least it wasn’t a sneeze
10
May 13

At least it wasn’t a sneeze

Do you believe in ghosts? That is the weirdest dateline I’ve seen for a story in a while, particularly since it isn’t specific, and the story is hardly comprehensive. Also it is … lacking. It refers to video and audio and all manner of things the ghost hunters — believers and skeptics alike — use to search for ghosts. But it doesn’t share any of them.

I suppose my first personal ghost story — that didn’t have to do with the great Kathryn Tucker Windam’s 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey which were amazing reads that haunted every child that cracked the spine of the text — were stories from some family member. It seems they had friends who lived in a civil war officer’s home. They’d go over to play cards and every so often the spirit, according to their story, wanted a little recognition. So he’d make noise upstairs somewhere. They’d acknowledge him aloud and all would be well.

We had a neighbor once who said her house was haunted, but that was the sort of thing that kids would tell to other kids. I probably said our house was haunted too. She said that her ghost would open doors and things. So one day we opened every cabinet and drawer in her kitchen. Before she went into the kitchen and noticed it her dad came home. He was not pleased.

My high school, which was a 1930s WPA project, had a restroom light that liked to be on. No one could explain that. The school doubled as something of a community center, so it never shut down promptly at 3 p.m., which meant someone had to always be on hand. This poor math teacher somehow managed to have that job and that light drove him crazy. (It was a short trip.) So we decided there was a ghost in the boys restroom in the junior high wing.

Every now and then we’d try to trick people into thinking there were floating orbs in an old cemetery in our neighborhood. This was before, as far as I know, we knew that people talked about floating orbs, so at least we had good details. I noticed years later there was a Revolutionary War veteran buried there, which is still one of my favorite things about the place:

Lawley

A geneaology site says about John Lawley, who moved there in the 18-teens:

The land was productive and required but little labor to produce the necessaries of life. The woods were a hunters paradise a paradise abounding in deer, turkey, with some panther and bear. The winters were not so cold then as now. Cattle and horses were raised in the woods and afforded all the butter beef and milk that was needed. Not with- the glowing description given to prospective settlers, these early men and women and children knew the meaning of hard work and sacrifice, but knew, too, the delight of living in a new land.

He lived as a royal subject and then as an American under Washington through Andrew Jackson. He died an old man, in 1832. But he’s probably not a ghost.

We have a lot of those tales in the South, which is the foundation of the story initially linked above. There’s supposed to be a ghost of a soldier in the chapel at Auburn. The Roundhouse at the University of Alabama has a similar story. Here’s a Georgia one that landed in my inbox today, in fact, with supposed photographic proof. In Savannah the dead are an industry unto themselves, and the ghost tours are an important tourist activity:

I’ve never seen any ghosts. But I have been to a few battlefields.

Stuff from Twitter: because why not?

I have this feeling that it all get worse before it gets better.

I looked at the drought monitor today and saw something unusual:

Drought

That chart is updated weekly. Last week the two southernmost counties, Mobile and Baldwin, still had a good deal of yellow covering them. And then it rained about eight inches in one night down there. This is the first time since 2010 that no county in the state has not reported dry or drought conditions.

Pretty tough times in the plains states, though. James Lileks, last week on the drought breaking in Minnesota:

well, well, what do you know: the drought lifts. The dryness of the last few years is forgotten as the mean reasserts itself over the long run of the decade, which itself will be a wink, a blip, an inhalation to the next decades exhalation, just as the universe itself is a bang at the start and a great collapse at the end, like two flaps of a heart valve. Assuming there’s enough matter to cause the universe to contract, that is. I hope so. I hate the idea that it begins with a great gust of matter, spreads and cools and ends in silence. Because that would make the universe, in essence, a sneeze.

Swam 1,200 meters today. When I went down the pool to start that last lap The Yankee — who is a champion swimmer, mind you — said “If you do 16 it’ll be a mile.”

Don’t tell me that.

But I did get in three-quarters of a mile. And then I rode 15 miles on my bicycle, just because it was a longer way home.

I do not know what is happening.

Auburn / cycling / journalism / links / memories / Monday / things to read / video — Comments Off on They really are heavier
6
May 13

They really are heavier

Mowed the lawn. Shivered during the first part of it. This is May in Alabama. So glad we licked that global warming thing.

Or maybe they were right in the 1970s and global cooling is upon us. Nah, probably not. Complex, multiple ecosystems moving with and against each other and al that. But it was another day of supposed rain that proved to be clouds that stayed a while, whispered on us and then never had the decency to melt away like a bad rumor would. When I started mowing the lawn I thought I would be rained out.

So I had a few minutes late in the evening to ride my bicycle. This is a silly thing, but I have new water bottles — because the old ones are a bit small and have a weird top I don’t like and they now have 3,200 miles on them — and I wanted to try these out. They are simple, basic, straightforward and inexpensive plastic that holds a lot of water. This, I thought, would be a good thing in the summer. If the season ever considers approaching.

The high today was a pleasant 63, with overcast skies throughout.

So I hopped on the bike, swung the headset through the sidewalk and down the short driveway and into the road. I had about three pedal strokes in and, you won’t believe this, I noticed the water bottles made the bike heavier.

I ride an aluminum bike with a carbon fork. Altogether it weighs somewhere around 18-20 pounds, probably. I’m not a $6,000, 14-grams of carbon guy. But I notice things. When I switched from Continental racing tires to kevlar training tires I noticed a drop off in my incredibly limited performance. When I put a Gatorskin on the back wheel when I was finally able to return to the bike at the beginning of the year I noticed there was a bit less resistance and, hence, more speed.

I notice things like this on my bike. It is a simple perception. (And my bike’s geometry isn’t even dialed in.) The Yankee says it is like the Princess and the Pea.

So I ride up to the next town. My shoulder hurts. My shoulder gets better. My water bottles are full and heavy. Not bad, heavy, but noticeable. They’re there. I ride back down through the rural backroads to get close to home. And there I got a runner’s stitch, which slowed me down a bit. That went away. So I pedaled on through our local time trial area and saw the sun for the first time today, just as it was retiring for the evening. Back past the state park I went, having a grand ol’ time and showing one on the computer, too. Raced up College, to the art museum, turned and headed home.

I was out for just under an hour. I went through two residential areas, a golf course, the big shopping district, past two country cemeteries, more suburbs, a state park, another commercial strip, an art museum and a city park. In all of that time I was never more than five linear miles from home. What a great town.

Also, my water bottles are heavier. That must account for my little boost in speed: more mass moving downhill.

Things to read: 14 tips for journalists on Facebook. Number six is share breaking news. Number seven is keep followers updated. Nevertheless, this list might still be useful to someone.

Trend watch: Digital marketing services:

When in doubt, do it all

In 2008, The Dallas Morning News began to experience what publisher and chief executive officer Jim Moroney called “a significant decline in print ad revenue for the second consecutive year.”

The paper approached the problem by diversifying from several angles. It “aggressively” sought more commercial printing and distribution, and now prints The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Investor’s Business Daily, along with USA Today, formerly its sole commercial printing client.

The Morning News also created CrowdSource, an event marketing division, as an addition to its portfolio. The purpose was to generate incremental revenue while engaging consumers with the brand. Last year, for example, CrowdSource created an event called Walk In The Park to bring residents out to a new downtown park in which the paper sponsors a reading and games room. Currently, CrowdSource is working with other organizations on a 50th anniversary commemoration of the JFK assassination in Dallas.

Another new part of the company is 508 Digital. This business — named for the address of the newspaper’s building — operates like an agency, offering digital, social media, and search engine optimization services for small- and medium-sized businesses. Speakeasy is another marketing and promotions division that provides social media strategy and execution for local businesses that offers “content marketing delivered via smart social media.”

Finally, the Dallas Morning News started two magazines, Texas Wedding Guide and Design Guide, as yet another way to expand the brand and increase revenue.

Based on results thus far, Moroney said, “We will continue to pursue a strategy that builds new sources of revenue off the foundation of our brand, our core competencies, and our infrastructure.”

That one is worth the long excerpt and worth the read.

New York Times launches web-only documentaries with Retro Report:

The New York Times is launching a series of short, web-only documentaries with Retro Report, a nonprofit news organization that aims to investigate “the most perplexing news stories of our past with the goal of encouraging the public to think more critically about current events and the media.”

The videos will air each Monday at the NYT’s baby boomer blog, “Booming,” and on Retro Report’s website. Each will be 10 to 15 minutes long and accompanied by a story by NYT reporter Michael Winerip. The first one, “The Voyage of the Mobro 4000,” looks at the garbage barge of 1987.

This one has a small Alabama hook. And is moderately interesting. But 12 minutes is a lot to ask of online audiences with only mildly interesting. Judge for yourself:

Fascinating video interview here. AP’s global video news chief: Sorting out contributors vs. activists in Syria:

With little access to the raging civil war in Syria, the Associated Press has been relying on a citizen journalists with smart phones with the Bambuser app to stream live coverage of the conflict, explains Sandy MacIntrye …

Not necessarily just observers, he notes that many of the contributors are activists and he explains how they and their associations are clearly identified and authenticated.

TV is the next model to be disrupted. It’ll persist, but they’re going to be hurt badly. You can already see it in YouTube’s numbers, in the ratings, in the financials and second-screen habits. If you are in television, or invested in TV marketing, and not already thinking down this path you should probably pick up your pace. This might help. 10 reasons to combine your TV And web video ad campaigns:

TV still makes up the vast majority of advertising media budgets, by far. But it’s no secret that today’s TV audience is also watching their favorite shows online. If you’re a marketer, you know that this is an important shift in viewer behavior that could impact the effectiveness of your TV campaigns. But you don’t know how it impacts your TV efforts or what you can do about it. There’s one way to find out: Manage and measure TV and online video together. When you do this, numerous new synergies and opportunities will arise along with the answers.

A reporter at the Toronto Star erred, significantly, and the newspaper is fixing the problem. Talk about a paper getting it right. Toronto Star will hold training sessions for reporters following front-page apology:

Star investigations editor Kevin Donovan will lead mandatory training sessions for reporters following an embarrassing incident last week, Star Public Editor Kathy English writes. The Star published a story accusing provincial parliament member Margarett Best of vacationing in Mexico while she was on medical leave; reporter Richard Brennan misunderstood a tag on a photo on Best’s Facebook page, English writes, and didn’t tell her that was the subject of his story when he tried to get comment.

Now all the reporters are getting a brush-up.

Finally, it pays to stick with a story. This one has been going on for three years.

“Another thing with neurological progression is that it’s five steps forward and three steps back,” she said. “It’s peaks and valleys. It’s not continual.”

[…]

After everything he’s been through, Kevin said he will keep trying to get back to being normal again.
“I’ve just been working so hard…and I’m getting better,” Kevin said.

Read that, meet one tough eight-year-old.

Auburn / baseball / memories / photo / weekend — Comments Off on We haven’t bested 72 in a week
4
May 13

We haven’t bested 72 in a week

OK, I’ll complain about the weather this much: “Tomorrow morning temperatures will drop into the 38-42 degree range.”

Checking my elaborately Photoshopped gag gift calendar … yes, I see that this is May.

In Albany, NY, where Maine is playing baseball today, it is sunny and 75. We haven’t seen 75 in a week. It is 57 right now. The high temperatures for Auburn on this day in this century: 80, 78, 82, 69, 71, 84, 82, 79, 77, 84, 70, 84 and 60.

I’ve seen snow in the Deep South in April. But I’m pretty sure I’ve never huddled under a blanket in May. This is a strange season.

Also, it is rainy.

Yankee

The baseball game was delayed from the afternoon until the evening. So that meant even cooler still. Which wouldn’t have been so bad itself, but for the continual drizzle and threat of rain. And, also, it is May.

By the end of the night you could see your breath in the air.

But it was a quality baseball game:

The coach called it magical dust in one interview and said in another “I don’t know what works and what doesn’t work – just try to put guys in different spots.”

Whatever gets you into postseason play.

Today the high was 61. Tomorrow will be about the same, overcast, unseasonably cool and curiously devoid of any hints of spring. Mostly I just miss my friend, the sun.

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